When you’re home alone with a sick kid for two days you both do and do not have a lot of time to think about things. I often say to Jeff I wish I were one way or another. Either 100% stay at home, or 100% working. But that’s not true. The balance I have is really really great. It works for me and my personality, it works for my type of work, it works for my family and it works for my body’s need for balance. It has taken me a long time to get to this place – and it’s not like once I got it I kept it. It is a constant effort and struggle. It’s something that sometimes takes a lot of daily energy and thought and focus and then sometimes, it just comes naturally, like it’s the way it was supposed to be.

I have had inconsistent, totally irregular, not in balance cycles ever since I can remember. When I finally did start to get them again after coming off the pill, they were extremely heavy and very physically exhausting. It just seemed like there was so much happening in my body all at the same time. It took me a long time to realize that these physical manifestations- PMS, extreme cramps, bloating, gas, breast tenderness – were not what was supposed to be happening. I don’t want to say they aren’t normal because that might lead you to believe there is something wrong with you if you also share them. There isn’t. There is most likely a hormonal imbalance in your body.

Up until about a month ago I was seeing a Traditional Chinese Acupuncturist and taking Chinese herbs. I was also taking a whole foods women multivitamin, an iron supplement, liquid B12 and maybe a few other things. It was a lot. When we went home to Canada over the holidays I decided to try and give my body a break. Take a few things off the list and see what my body did. At first, nothing happened, but then things got worse. My eczema came back, my nails became brittle, I felt sluggish, anxious and things didn’t feel like they were moving energetically. I knew I needed something.

Back in October I took a course on Ayurvedic medicine at a local yoga studio. Ayurveda comes from the Sanskrit words ayur (meaning life) and veda (meaning science or knowledge). The way we talked about ourselves in that class – the ritual of our bodies and their connection to the natural world around us amazed me. Ayurveda looks at human bodies in their whole form – they don’t try to perfect or change them into something they aren’t. They accept and love the person, the mind and the body for exactly what it feels, emits and experiences. It’s medicine is only there to help keep things in balance. In more simple terms – if you know you struggle with cysts on your ovaries or have high testosterone levels in your body creating excess facial hair and acne ( to us more commonly known as mainstream PCOS ) the question Ayurveda would ask is – What is out of balance?  and how can we bring it back to balance in order to lessen them, or get rid of them completely?

After the class our teacher suggested a few things to purchase for our daily dinacharya ( the way we live in harmony with nature’s rhythm). A tongue scraper, oil to lubricate the inside of the nose and warm oil to ground the feet at night were a few of them. After a heart felt conversation with one of my close and very Ayurvedic knowledgeable friends, she agreed, that Banyan Botanicals was the place for me to buy a few of these things. I sifted through so much before I found a supplement that intrigued me called “Women’s Cycle Nourish”. This was the list that accompanied it:

Women with menstrual cycles that are characteristic of vata imbalances may typically experience any of the following:

Pain that is sharp, spasmodic in the lower abdomen or back (caused by intense uterine contractions preventing proper blood flow; cold quality causing constriction)
Dry or lightening of flow
Spotting before the flow and after the flow
Darkness in color
Stiffness in the body
Emotions of anxiety, nervousness, or fear
Some constipation (particularly at the start or right before the cycle)
Frothiness to the flow
The cycle can be more frequent, often with the above characteristics, and if you have a severe vata imbalance, the cycle can be less frequent.
These symptoms come from the dry, cold, and mobile qualities that promote depletion, constriction, and drying out of channels, which can cause occasional discomfort.

I know that I don’t present with all of the symptoms but I also know I am Vata dominant and that I have a very irregular cycle – so I bought two bottles.

Where am I going with all of this? On December 31st I decided to try it for the first time. Two pills once a day. Slowly I felt something energetically shift inside me. I couldn’t tell what it was – I just felt like something was happening but I hadn’t seen my cycle for about 60 days at this point, so when I saw blood a week ago I was floored. Not only because it had been so long but because it was so different. It wasn’t insanely heavy and painful – it was just a period. It felt like what a totally normal healthy red blood, no clot, minimal cramp period should feel like for the first time ever in my life.

I hope it doesn’t surprise you how incredibly JAZZED I am about this. I could probably count the amount of non birth control cycles I’ve had, so to me, periods in general are just magic. They are pure hormones in balance, body functioning, babies-can-be-made magic. If yours is anything like mine was ( or maybe still is, that could have just been a magic blip!) I want you to give yourself a virtual squeeze. If it’s not, don’t worry and squeeze yourself anyways. Periods, no matter what way we look at them are awesome.

Ayurveda has this thing called PrajnaParadha  which translates to “Crimes Against Wisdom” and they believe they are the core reasons why people get sick. My yoga teacher talks about it before starting every single class and I think it’s some of the most wise stuff I’ve heard in a long time. Mostly because it’s intuitive and it’s something WE ALL DO. Before you read about it, ask yourself how many times you haven’t drank water because you’re too lazy to get up and fill up your glass? Or have actively not gone to to the bathroom when you had to? I’m raising my hand to both.

We are all guilty of it, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change the way we act on what our bodies are telling us. The sanskrit word prajna means direct insight into the truth; paradha means opposition. PrajnaParadha, is to make a choice that is detriment to oneself and that can threaten your state of health and balance.

So let’s stop. Or at least attempt to stop doing this. And let’s recognize that our bodies can change. Our symptoms can change shape and our bodies can come back to balance.

That’s the point of all of this – it can happen naturally. But you’ve got to slow down and listen and do something about it. Just like I wrote in my last post about knowing I needed to leave my last practitioner and try something else- it’s all in these wise bodies of ours, we’ve just got to find a way to quiet our heads and go somewhere we can really hear.